Dying didn't feel important.
There was no sharp pain. No dramatic moment. Just a heavy pressure in his chest, like something was sitting on him, refusing to move. A nurse called his name from somewhere far away. Too far. Too late.
The ceiling was the last thing he noticed. White. Slightly cracked. He remembered thinking he'd seen that stain before.
The faint embarrassment came after.
Ah. I'm causing trouble.
The last thing he felt wasn't fear.
It was irritation.
So this is it? That's all I get?
Then everything went quiet.
-----
He didn't wake up.
He drifted.
There was no sense of falling or floating. Just fragments. Thoughts without order. Memories without weight. Moments rose to the surface and sank again before he could grab them.
A classroom.A phone screen glowing at night.Someone laughing at a joke he barely remembered making.
He knew those moments were his. He just couldn't feel them anymore.
It was like watching a life through fogged glass.
Time stopped behaving normally. There was no before or after. Only the vague feeling that something should be happening.
Then—
Noise.
It hit him all at once.
Too loud. Too sharp.
Air burned his lungs as it rushed in. His chest convulsed violently, muscles contracting without permission. Something tore out of his throat, thin and desperate.
He was crying.
Not because he wanted to.
Because his body forced him to.
That was when the panic really started.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
His limbs felt strange. Too light. Too weak. He tried to move and nothing happened the way he expected. He felt cloth against his skin, rough and unfamiliar. Warmth pressed in from all sides.
Arms.
Someone was holding him.
The realization came slowly, dread pooling in his stomach.
He was small.
Too small.
He tried to open his eyes. Light stabbed through his eyelids. He tried to turn his head. It wobbled uselessly.
No control. None.
He was a baby.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
Wrapped in cloth. Cradled against a chest that wasn't his. A voice murmured above him, low and gentle, using words he didn't understand but somehow knew weren't supposed to sound like that.
Panic surged.
This can't be real.
But his mind hadn't reset.
That was the worst part.
He remembered being older. Remembered responsibilities. Remembered regret. Remembered lying awake at night wondering when life had gone off track. Remembered knowing he should change something and never doing it.
Those thoughts didn't belong here.
They didn't belong in a body that couldn't even hold its own head up.
He tried to clench a fist.
Nothing.
He tried to scream words, to demand answers.
Only a weak cry came out.
The sound startled him. It wasn't his voice.
Terror settled in, slow and heavy.
I'm stuck like this.
Time returned in pieces.
Sleep. Hunger. Warmth. Discomfort.
Days passed. Or weeks. He couldn't tell. His body dictated everything. When to wake. When to cry. When to sleep again.
He learned the world by listening.
The language felt wrong. The structure made sense, but the sounds didn't match anything he knew. Familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The way people spoke was firm, direct. Even casual conversations carried a sharp edge.
He heard footsteps on wooden floors. Sliding doors. The soft clink of metal tools. Water pouring. Stopping.
This place was real.
He began to recognize voices. Some were comforting. Others made the air feel heavier when they entered the room.
Then one day, someone laughed softly.
It was close. Too close.
"He's got strong chakra for his age."
The words hit him harder than the noise ever had.
Chakra.
The word echoed in his head.
Chakra.
Not a metaphor.
Not a coincidence.
His thoughts froze.
No.
That's not real.
That's fiction.
That's anime logic. Manga nonsense. Something you argue about online.
Except something answered from inside him.
Warmth stirred beneath his skin. Not imagination. Not metaphor. Something real, coiled deep in his body, reacting to his emotions. Fear made it tighten. Calm smoothed it out.
He felt it.
Clear as breath.
Denial rushed in immediately.
This is a dream.This is my brain misfiring.This is what happens when you die badly.
He clung to that explanation desperately.
Weeks passed.
The dream didn't end.
Reality didn't crack.
The walls were too solid. The routines too consistent. The language never shifted. The warmth inside him never faded.
One afternoon, he was carried outside.
That was when he saw the walls.
Tall. Massive. Stretching far beyond what his limited vision could take in. Symbols were carved into them. Familiar ones.
Too familiar.
The same insignia appeared on clothing. On banners. On doors.
People talked about missions the way others talked about work. Casually. Practically. Death was mentioned without pause.
It wasn't inspired by Naruto.
It was Naruto.
The realization settled slowly, like something heavy pressing down on his chest.
And it didn't bring excitement.
It brought fear.
He knew this world.
Knew how cruel it could be to people without names.
Civilians died quietly.Children learned to kill early.Talent decided everything.
And plot armor wasn't real.
It never had been.
What terrified him wasn't villains or monsters or future wars.
It was dying without anyone noticing.
I could die here and no one would remember me.
He didn't swear revenge.
He didn't dream of becoming Hokage.
Those promises felt fake. Too loud for the quiet fear curling inside him.
Lying there in the dark, staring at nothing, he made a smaller vow.
I'll pay attention this time.
He would watch. Listen. Learn. He wouldn't sleepwalk through this life the way he had the last one.
I'll learn.
Names. Power structures. Rules that weren't written down. Everything that might keep him alive.
And when this world tries to crush me like it does everyone else—
He paused.
—I won't make it easy.
It wasn't heroic.
It was survival.
The baby finally slept, body relaxing into rest.
But the person inside stayed awake a little longer, listening to the sounds of a world that didn't care whether he was ready or not.
This time, he planned to be.
.
.
.
My father Haru Inoue was an ordinary-looking man in a way that made him easy to overlook. Medium height, broad shoulders from years of physical labor, hands permanently rough and nicked with small scars that never fully faded. His hair was dark and kept short out of habit rather than style, and his eyes were narrow, observant, and perpetually tired.
He didn't talk much.
When he did, his words were chosen carefully, as if wasting them cost something. He had the posture of someone who listened more than he spoke, who noticed when a room shifted even if he didn't comment on it. Haru worked logistical support for the village—transport coordination, inventory records, errands that never made it into mission reports. Close enough to the shinobi world to feel its weight, far enough to never touch glory.
He had chakra, but barely enough to matter.
That fact shaped his life more than any dream ever could.
My mother Aiko Inoue was softer where Haru was rigid, though the softness hid a quiet resilience. She had warm brown eyes and long hair usually tied back in a loose knot that came undone by the end of the day. Her hands were gentler than her husband's, skilled with thread and fabric, always smelling faintly of soap and dye.
She smiled easily, but worry lived just beneath it.
Aiko worked part-time at a local shop and took sewing work home when money was tight. She talked often, sometimes too much, filling silence because silence invited thoughts she didn't like having. Where Haru watched the world with restraint, Aiko worried about it openly.
She loved fiercely.
The first year passed quietly.
He remembered it in broken pieces, because memory didn't behave the way it should have. His mind was intact, but the body interfered constantly. Sleep erased details. Hunger fractured thoughts. Pain made everything scatter.
Time moved differently now.
He spent most of it in someone else's arms.
His father held him awkwardly at first, as if afraid of doing something wrong. Haru's hands were large and rough, scarred in small ways that spoke of work done without complaint. When he carried him, his grip was careful but firm, like he was handling something fragile that he couldn't afford to drop.
His mother was the opposite.
Aiko talked to him constantly, even when he couldn't respond. She narrated her movements, her thoughts, sometimes even her worries, as if saying them out loud made them less heavy. Her voice became a constant in his early awareness, rising and falling with emotion, softening when she thought he was asleep.
They lived in a modest house.
Wooden floors that creaked in familiar places. Stone walls that held heat longer than expected. The kind of home that had been repaired more times than remodeled. It sat close enough to the main roads that outside noise bled in, but far enough that nights were mostly quiet.
No clan compound.No hidden prestige.
Just two civilians doing their best to exist beside a world built for killers.
His father worked long hours. Logistical work, paperwork, deliveries. Jobs that mattered without ever being acknowledged. Haru came home tired, shoulders heavy, eyes sharper than someone in his position needed to be. He listened more than he spoke, and when village news turned grim, he went quiet in a way that made the air feel tight.
Aiko noticed.
She always did.
She worried out loud. About shortages. About rumors. About the way shinobi passed through the streets with different expressions than before. She worried about their son too, even when there was no reason to.
Especially then.
As an infant, his days were simple.
Eat. Sleep. Cry. Observe.
He learned his parents' habits by sound before sight. The way Haru's footsteps slowed when he reached the front door. The soft exhale Aiko made when she finally sat down at night. The tension in their voices whenever someone mentioned missions or borders.
Danger here wasn't dramatic.
It was casual.
Chakra made itself known slowly.
At first, it was just warmth. A pressure beneath the skin, like something alive but dormant. It responded to emotion, not intent. Fear tightened it. Calm smoothed it out.
He didn't try to control it.
He couldn't.
When he focused too hard, dizziness followed. More than once, he pushed himself and lost consciousness entirely, waking later to Aiko's worried face hovering above him.
That taught him restraint.
So he watched instead.
He listened when Haru spoke about work, about routes and schedules and how things rarely went according to plan. He listened when Aiko gossiped with neighbors, picking up what was said and what was avoided.
By the time he could sit up, he understood something important.
Chakra wasn't forced.
It was settled into.
That realization came not from insight, but necessity. Every attempt to push ended badly. Every moment of calm made the warmth inside him feel smoother, more cooperative.
When he was nearly two, Aiko noticed him staring at his hands.
Not playing. Not reaching.
Just watching.
At first, she laughed it off.
Babies were strange.
But the habit didn't fade. He would sit quietly, breathing slow, eyes unfocused but alert.
Once, she waved a hand in front of his face.
He didn't react right away.
The laugh that followed was nervous.
From then on, she watched him more closely.
The first chakra node unlocked by accident.
He was sick. Feverish. Weak. In and out of awareness. He remembered Aiko's cool hand on his forehead, the way her voice trembled when she thought he couldn't hear.
Something inside him shifted.
Not exploded.
Aligned.
The warmth gathered inward, then spread carefully, thin streams finding pathways that resisted less than before. His breathing deepened. The fever broke sometime before morning.
No one noticed anything unnatural.
But he did.
By three, he could walk.
By three, Haru began taking him on short walks through the village. Not far. Never near training grounds. But enough to see how shinobi moved. How they stood. How they noticed things without looking like they were looking.
He fell often.
Bruises were common. Scrapes too.
But he healed faster than expected.
Not enough to alarm anyone.
Just enough for Haru to grunt once, approvingly, and say, "He's sturdy."
Aiko smiled, still worried.
At night, after he was put to bed, he practiced breathing.
Slow. Gentle. Controlled.
Progress came in months, not days.
By four, several chakra nodes had loosened enough to allow smooth flow. No techniques. No visible effects. Just balance.
He could run longer. Sit still longer. Focus longer.
Adults praised him for being quiet.
They mistook discipline for temperament.
He stayed careful.
He laughed when expected. Asked simple questions. Learned at the same pace as other children. Standing out was dangerous, and his parents—especially Haru—understood that instinctively.
At night, he thought about the future.
Not dreams.
Plans.
Survive childhood.Avoid attention.Enter the academy prepared, but not exceptional.
And keep unlocking himself slowly.
Carefully.